


Love and Shadows - Brynjolf/Callaina

by thelightofmorning



Series: Gift Fics [3]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Author Too Lazy To Use Tags, Drabble, F/M, Gift Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:08:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29669799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelightofmorning/pseuds/thelightofmorning
Summary: Drabbles for one of my favourite pairings - Brynjolf/Callaina of the Aureliiverse.First chapter is a condensed version of 'Mara's Mercy' and the second will be set after 'Cross-Guild Cooperation'.
Relationships: Brynjolf/Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn
Series: Gift Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2179593
Comments: 15
Kudos: 12





	1. Stealing Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sixylicious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sixylicious/gifts).



> Thanks for reading and reviewing. Trigger warning for death, violence, fantastic racism, criminal acts, corpse desecration, kidnapping, grief/mourning, religious conflict and mentions of imprisonment, war crimes, child abuse, child abandonment and genocide. Brynjolf/Callaina drabbles for Sixylicious. This chapter is a condensed version of ‘Mara’s Mercy’; slightly modified quote comes from Corinthians in the Bible – however you feel about religion, it’s one of the best quotes about love ever.

“Running a little light in the pockets, lass?”

“Yes, I am,” admitted the compact brunette who’d just entered the marketplace with a leather-clad Khajiit. “It comes with the territory of being a priest.”

Brynjolf winced. He was losing his touch and his instincts. The travel-stained threadbare robe wrapped around her was of the rough brown wool used by Imperial priests and she wore an Amulet of Mara. Well, he supposed if he was going to be harangued by a cleric, this one was easier on the eyes than Maramal.

“You must be Brynjolf,” she said amusedly. “Neela-Tai warned me about you.”

“I never knew that Bruma’s Guildmaster had dealings with a Priest of Mara,” Brynjolf said, blinking.

“I wasn’t always a priest. I hope, at least, that snake oil you’re selling is harmless.” A touch of steel had entered the warm husky contralto.

“Watered stamina potion,” he admitted softly. “Look, lass, I don’t bother priests unless they’re corrupt. I stay on my road, you stay on yours? Deal?”

He hoped she agreed. He didn’t want to get in a fight with a Priest of Mara who knew the Guild’s ways. She’d win by dint of being a beautiful Priest of fucking Mara.

“Do as the Grey Fox did and you’ll be fine,” she promised. “Trouble the poor and desperate…”

Brynjolf shouldn’t be so attracted to this woman at first sight. Why hadn’t he met her when she was still a Thief?

…

Well, now she knew why the High Prelate sent her to Skyrim over his cousin Titus Mede’s objections.

Hope licked her lips, tasting iron and heat. The dragon was nothing but grey-brown bones baking under the late summer sun, Dar’taqto already rummaging in the torso-cage to extract the lump of gold and enchanted metal therein, and the guards of the Rift were shocked.

Good for them. So was she.

The trip back to Riften was triumphant… for the guards. Hope really, really could have done without this glory and burden. Couldn’t Akatosh have located some musclebound moron who would have done war upon the dragons with a merry heart and a complete lack of wit? Instead, she was bound by mercy and compassion, virtues which didn’t exactly lend themselves to slaying house-sized immortal, practically invulnerable engines of destruction.

“I hope Mara knows what She’s doing, because I don’t,” she murmured as they entered the gates.

“Does this mean Maramal was right?” asked one of the guards.

“No! Mara’s mercy, no,” Hope said firmly. “Mara wouldn’t send dragons, even if dragons answered to Her, for people having a bloody drink at the pub. She values the fruits of the vine and earth… so long as they’re consumed in moderation, of course.”

“Judging by sales of Talen-Jei’s special drinks after one of his sermons, She must be divinely inspiring them,” Brynjolf said dryly at his usual post in the marketplace. “Because gods know I could use a drink after one.”

“You attend Temple?” Hope asked him sceptically.

“Don’t need to. He treats us to regular sermons in the marketplace,” the too-handsome Thief laughed.

“A little of Mara’s grace wouldn’t hurt you, Brynjolf,” she said gently. “If nothing else, it would heal the heart-wound that poisons you.”

His expression turned bleak. “Some things are beyond forgiveness, lass.”

“I’m not asking you to forgive. I have family I can never forgive for their actions. But I can let the wound scar over and learn to live with it.” She smiled sadly. “But I have need of your Guild’s services.”

“Someone steal from the poor box again?” he asked with a falsely roguish grin; her words had stung.

“No.” Hope sighed. “I’m the fucking Dragonborn and I need everything you can find on dragonlore.”

…

“Why’d you follow me, lass?” Brynjolf gasped as Hope, clad in enchanted monk’s robes and a fine fur cloak, knelt beside him with Dar’taqto talking quietly to Karliah. Damn Mercer for his treachery!

“Because it would be a shame to see a good man die,” she said softly, hands glowing golden. “Brace yourself. This will hurt.”

It did but when the pain ebbed away, he realised that he was very close to a ridiculously attractive, too compassionate and generous woman. She was a true priest and a bloody hero of legend.

“Lass, please, you don’t need to insult me,” he said with a hollow laugh. “I’m a good Thief but I’m not a good man.”

She sighed and shook her head. “Lie to yourself all you please, Brynjolf, but don’t lie to me. Don’t insult me like that.”

He sighed himself. “I’m a Thief, lass. It’s what we do.”

…

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of Aedra, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.”

The Benevolence was packed today to hear the Dragonborn’s first sermon as High Priestess of Mara. She could have done without the massive audience but after the defeat of Alduin, there was no going back to a quiet life as a random cleric unless she changed her face, her name and got a special dispensation to move to the arse-end of nowhere. Not going to happen, not when the Benevolence in Skyrim was officially schismatic after the defeat of the Empire.

The two saps she was marrying beamed at her, an unnatural sight on the austere features of the Stormsword made rugged by Egil’s paternal ancestry. Shahvee, on the other hand, was a naturally cheerful child who loved the idea of being married by Aunty Hope in the Benevolence while all the important Nords watched. She’d married Bjarni and Muiri last week, much to the ghostly horror of Sigdrifa Stormsword. Hope wondered if she was the only one to see the unquiet ghost.

_Trust Mother to haunt me,_ she thought with an inward sigh as she began the wedding vows. _There’s just no getting away from her._

Afterwards, everyone retired to Mistveil Keep for the party. Watching Muiri lord it over the Shatter-Shields was a little tedious; the girl had a lot of resentment that even becoming High Queen of the Reach didn’t resolve. But her marriage to Bjarni – a surprisingly mutually affectionate ones given the history of blood and grief between their families – fixed more problems than it caused. Mostly.

“Your brother married to my cousin,” Bryn remarked as he joined her in the corner. “Sigdrifa must be screaming.”

“Oh, she is,” Hope admitted, a little too drunk to censor her words. “I wish we could find her grave, if only to dump her bones halfway to Atmora.”

“I’ll get the Guild on it,” he promised. “So, Dragonborn?”

“Yes, Thane of the Rift?”

“We’ve come a long way together and…” He blew out a forceful breath. “We saved each other’s lives. It’s a pity we’re both religious figures, because a marriage between us would have resolved clan issues too.”

“Wow, Bryn,” observed Neela-Tai as she walked past. “Such a romantic proposal. And here I thought I’d needed to warn Hope about you.”

Bryn gave her the finger and earned a laugh from the Guild’s new Evening Master. Even Hope had a chuckle at the interaction.

“Fuck family issues,” Hope said with a shrug. “If I marry you, it’s because you’re ridiculously handsome and for some reason, Mara approves. Not because it’d sort out family issues.”

“I’ve never seen a drunken confession of love,” Cirroc said to Neela-Tai. “Is that how you tell someone you love them?”

“No, not usually,” Neela-Tai told him.

“Hey Erandur!” Hope yelled across the room to her fellow Priest of Mara. “You up for a wedding tomorrow?”

“Only once I recover from the sujamma!” was his response.

“Great!”

She’d never expected for a Thief to steal her heart but – as she kissed Bryn – she figured that for once, Mara would let this one go. They _were_ getting married after all.


	2. So Far From What I Was

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: Thanks for reading and reviewing. Dad!Bryn, everyone. Final chapter for Sixylicious, post-story drabble for ‘Cross-Guild Cooperation’.

Gillam was a clever lad, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and Bryn was pretty certain he was the smartest Jarl’s son in all of Skyrim. That he happened to be the lad’s father didn’t play a part in it at all. Mostly.

Three years old and it was time for him to learn the alphabet. Multiple alphabets, if the store of books his mother brought into the Jarl’s house was anything to go by, but then Laina always put a lot of faith in books as a mage. Bryn would rather handle the practical side of Gillam’s education while his wife took care of baby Setareh in between solving problems as Arch-Mage and yelling at the College’s faculty as Arch-Mage. Laina had to do a lot of things as Arch-Mage just as he had to do a lot of things as Jarl.

“Well, lad, today’s the time to learn your ABCs,” Bryn announced as they walked down the main street of Winterhold, one that ran directly from the enchanted city gates to the enchanted College gates. The stalhrim walls gleamed like frosted blue glass in the sunlight, frost-resistant flowers and plants grew in pots, and the stone buildings were sturdy, comfortable and enchanted against frost, fire and earthshakes. While nowhere its ancient grandeur, it was a far cry from the collection of shabby cottages and a derelict College five years ago. Some of the best minds in Tamriel came here to study under Skyrim’s greatest mage and to see if they could learn from the Dragonborn who overthrew Alduin.

Sometimes Bryn even indulged them. But not too often. In the wrong hands, the Thu’um was dangerous.

“I learned my letters from Gallus,” Bryn continued as Gillam looked up at him with those bright sea-green eyes. His hair was dark with an auburn cast and his skin rosy-brown; he’d break hearts when he grew up. “Gallus started me with ‘A is for the apple, from which the cart I steal-‘”

“You can take the Thief out of the Guild but you can’t take the Thief out of the Jarl, eh, Bryn?” Erandur asked as he swept out the porch of the Temple of All Gods.

“It works, lad,” Bryn retorted, then looked down at Gillam. “’B is for bash… eh, bashing horkers’ heads in’.”

“Apple,” Gillam repeated cheerfully. He was such a bright and sunny lad with a heart of gold, not like Balgruuf’s monsters. Bryn wanted to dropkick those two young men from the top of Dragonsreach’s steps every time they opened their mouths. Thank the Nine some stupid bastard in Cyrodiil married Dagny.

“That’s a good lad!” Bryn grinned. “Now ‘C is for the cosh you, uh, hit the horkers with’…”

They walked towards the College, not a great distance since Laina repaired the earthbones, and entered a courtyard that was warm as a summer’s day in the Rift. That was one downside of living in Winterhold; it was cold enough to freeze an ice wraith’s heart. But here, exotic plants from across Tamriel bloomed, and Quaranir was boring some students to death with a lecture on Aedra.

_“One day, you and I will face the Thalmor,”_ the Psijic prophet had told Laina a few years ago, or something like that. The implication had been that she’d outlive Bryn. Given her gift for sorcery and the fact magic could extend one’s life, he wouldn’t be surprised. He wasn’t interested in learning. He had enough on his hands and the thought of outliving his kids…

“’L is for Laina, who’s your ma’,” Bryn told Gillam with a smile as he spotted the white-haired sorceress across the courtyard, snipping some kind of odd flower from a low bush. She’d regained all of the health lost in the Battle of the Eye, as some of the bards called her epic mage duel with Ancano of the Thalmor, but her hair remained that bright and shining white hue. It wasn’t hereditary, as Gillam and Setareh showed, but no matter what the colour never seemed dingy or old.

“Ma!” Gillam cried out, running to her. Setareh was in a little basket that floated in mid-air, buoyed by Laina’s innate gift for Telekinesis. In between having kids, advising various Jarls and being Bryn’s wife, she’d become a true Arch-Mage, mastering every School known to mankind. Not every spell, as she laughed, but a good many of them. And she even invented new ones.

“Gillam!” she laughed, catching him and lifting him magically to her arms. “What’s going on, kiddo?”

“Da say ABCs,” he told her. “Apple, bash, cosh, dimint-“

“It’s how I learned my alphabet!” Bryn protested when Laina raised an eyebrow at him.

“I learned mine in Akaviri,” she said, turning around to show Gillam his sister, who was trying to eat her fist today. If it was light and small, Setareh tried to stuff it in her mouth. “But still… What if he gets caught picking pockets?”

“I didn’t do a good enough job of teaching him properly,” Bryn answered with a grin.

Her blue-green eyes rolled heavenward in a plea for divinely inspired patience before she set Gillam down again. “I love you, Bryn, but I’d like to have law-abiding children, if you please.”

“You didn’t mind me stealing all that stuff before!” he protested.

“Only because then, no one suspected you. If something goes missing now, the ‘Thief-Jarl’ is the first suspect.” She ruffled Gillam’s hair fondly. “As you’ve noticed, you and Balgruuf are the intellectual cream of the crop when it comes to Skyrim’s Jarls.”

“Sometimes, lass, the Cyrod in you shows a little too much,” he chuckled.

She nodded in acknowledgment. “Probably. Well, Setareh’s been inoculated against every disease the College can think of, a few Quaranir knew about, and two Great-Great-Granma told me about from Oblivion. She’s ridiculously healthy, she’s meeting her milestones normally, and I’m pretty sure she’s going to be a mage because things on shelves have wound up in her cot when there’s no way she can reach them.”

“I suppose one of the kids had to inherit your gift,” Bryn grinned.

“At least she will come into the knowledge gently, without being forced or…” Laina shook her head. “Granma’s planning the naming rites already and is dropping hints she wants her name used. But I’m not sure I want to call a poor child Setareh Eodwyn Catriona mac Aurelia.”

“Aye, bit of a mouthful that, lass,” he agreed.

She smiled and then brought the basket down, tying its handle to Gillam’s wrist. “Lead that to Aunty Faralda and tell her you can have a snowberry pie and Setareh mashed snowberries.”

“Yes, Ma!” Gillam loved snowberry pies. So did Bryn.

Bryn watched Gillam run off to Faralda across the courtyard, smiling, and then turned back to his wife. “Want a bit of alone time, eh, lass?”

“Honestly? Yes. I love our children but they are loud, demanding and stubborn. A lot like us.” She folded into his arms like a traveller come home. “Sometimes I wonder if this is a dream and I will awake in my little stone bed with no family or a hope for one.”

“Sometimes I wake up and for a moment, I think I’m back in Riften,” he admitted. “I know the feeling, lass…”

He rested his chin on her head. “You and me have come a long way since Snow Veil Sanctum, aye?”

“Yeah,” she said softly. Then she smiled. “I knew you were handsome and you were trouble. But I didn’t know you’d be the Dragonborn.”

“I’ve been in love with you since you swore your head off about Karliah leaving us,” Bryn confessed. “Such eloquence, lass. You could have made Delvin blush.”

“That’d take some doing, as he has no shame,” she said dryly.

Bryn laughed and kissed her. As always, the world vanished around them, leaving only him and her. Of all the fates he expected, love was pretty low on the list. But now he had it, he could never, ever live without it.

From Thief to Jarl, from Day Master to Dragonborn, it had been a long strange journey, driven mostly because of Laina. She’d shown him honour and courage were true things, not fictions of the lowlander Nords, and stood with him even though she should have been his enemy. Bryn had never been a great man or even a good man, but he was honest enough to admit that without Laina, him as Dragonborn…

He might have become a more benevolent Mercer Frey. Oh, he wouldn’t have betrayed the Guild, but everything and everyone would have been a tool or a fool. One could be fond of tools but it didn’t mean you treated them as friends.

Bryn liked to think he’d have considered Delvin and Vex friends. They were his equals in the Guild.

Now, a Jarl was approached by all sorts of people wanting to be ‘friends’, but Bryn knew they were fool’s gold friends. Marius, Quaranir and the others he’d befriended during the defeat of Alduin…? They were true friends. Even now, having left the Guild, he was better friends with Delvin, Vex, Karliah and even Karliah’s lad Bjarni. Ulfric’s precious eldest becoming a Thief was an odd kind of wergild, Bryn figured. Ulfric probably didn’t care, drunk off his arse in Sovngarde that he was.

But Laina, she was his first friend and the love of his life.

Bryn sighed and hugged her tighter. At the end of the day, he wouldn’t change a thing in the world, even if it took him far from what he’d been.


End file.
